With its Firefox Developer Edition, Mozilla is offering what it calls the first browser specifically built for developers.

Developer Edition offers access to tools and platform features at least 12 weeks before they hit the main release channel, according to the Developer Edition Web page.

The browser is intended to overcome issues developers have had in dealing with different browsers and platforms and browsers, providing a streamlined workflow, said Dave Camp, director of developer tools at Mozilla, in a blog post. "It's a stable developer browser which is not only a powerful authoring tool but also robust enough for everyday browsing," he said. "It also adds new features that simplify the process of building for the entire Web, whether targeting mobile or desktop across many different platforms."

Downloadable from Mozilla's website, Developer Edition replaces the Aurora channel for early adopters in the Firefox release process. It integrates WebIDE and Valence features to improve workflow and debug other browsers and apps, and it includes a JavaScript debugger, style editor, Web audio editor, Web console, and Web page inspector.

No additional plug-ins or applications are needed to debug mobile devices, Camp said, and experienced developers will be familiar with the installed tools.

Developer Edition is to be updated every six weeks. It uses a separate profile from other Firefox versions installed on a developer's machine, enabling developers to run Developer alongside their release or a beta version of the browsers. Default preference values are set up for Web developers.

This story, "Mozilla Offers Browser Tailor-Made for Developers" was originally published by
InfoWorld.